FB who was your target audience when you started your thread? I don’t say that as a joke. All you’re doing is just reiterating party lines. You can’t really think you were actually having a conversation or discussion with someone else on the other side. Or did you? You have already made it know that you don’t like Trump and can’t accept him in any form.
There's a difference between Trump and Bush. Bush at least represented the whole country and had a moral compass. When he called for no violence or retaliation against muslims after 9/11, I really respected him for that. I felt he was a good person even though I disagreed with his politics. I thought he made a lot of good decisions the last few years of his presidency that saved the country. Trump is reckless and cares for no one but himself. He will burn the country if it means achieving his personal aims. He's not just a Republican I disagree with, he's a threat to our national security and the fabric of our nation. I'd much rather have Pence as president than Trump.
The frustration so many of us have is the notion that all this is a matter of sides or party lines. The reality is that it is a matter of observing what is actually taking place, understanding implications and consequences, making an effort to acquire reliable information. When this is done, what stands is not a matter of side or opinion or desire. The observation has been made that when understanding is complete, there is no opinion.
No. My target audience were the Trump defenders who claim that they don't think he's a saint, don't like what he says, but do like what he does. My point is that other Republican candidates would take almost all the same positions Trump has taken as far as what he does. Yet, in order to support or defend Trump you have to be okay or put at lower regard his bigotry, cruelty to children, humiliating the country, giving into America's rivals and authoritarians that have targeted our democracy. I wanted to hear from people that support and defend him but admittedly don't like some of the things he says and does. What about Trump makes it okay to overlook those things? I am curious. I included my 'good' list things that I strongly disagree with, but are legitimate policy issues that other Americans might support. If there were a Democratic candidate worked hard for reforming the criminal justice system, public school funding for low income areas, but treated people in a way that would be a war crime if we were at war, and who's work was praised and applauded by white supremacists, I would still not support or defend that candidate. I would realize other candidates would hold the same positions on actions that I liked, but I wouldn't have to overlook or try to excuse the corruption, cruelty, bigotry etc. I guess I also wanted to find out of all of things that Trump has done don't make a line that won't be crossed, what would it take to do that?
This isn't hard to understand. If you are on the left... how many horrible things would Barack Obama or pick your favorite politician have to do before you would vote for Ted Cruz over them? That's essentially what conservatives are dealing with. Lots of them don't like Trump and his lack of morals, but having the gangster on your side is better than losing everything you value by electing the other party.
That's a good summary, but allow me a small rebuttal. The above frames poor republican voters as powerless beings who had a difficult choice thrust upon them in 2016. But Trump was the front-runner of the republican pack from the moment he declared in August 2015, and he never looked back. He was loved from the outset, and millions voted for him in the primaries. Trump wasn't thrust upon an unwilling republican electorate- they embraced him lovingly from the get-go. You combine this with the fact that any other republican candidate - a president Cruz, president Jeb Bush, any of them would also have passed tax cuts and put conservatives on the supreme court; one can only conclude that Trump was embraced because of his bigotry, hubris, lies, and nuclear trolling of liberals, not in spite of it. That was his true differentiator from the rest of the candidates.
Except they could have voted against him in the primaries. There are third party candidates to vote for as well. As to your example, I voted for Obama in 2008. I didn't in 2012. What he had to do to lose my vote was primarily break his promise to protect and listen to whistle-blowers. Instead he started cracking down on them. There were other smaller things but that was the big one. But even if it were a matter voting for a Republican different than Trump over Obama, many of the things on my list would have done it. All of them together would do it for sure.
Trump didn't just ignite the republican base. He won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Those states haven't gone red since the 1980s. He won counties that Obama won easily. Who knows if Jeb or Cruz could have pulled that off? I personally do not believe that is the case. Maybe people in the above mentioned states saw their lives getting worse the last 8 years and wanted the outsider because Clinton was easy to hate and they saw her as 4 more years of Obama? Trump didn't win because he carried the normal republican states. He found new voters that the other party forgot about. I believe the anti-immigrant and anti-nafta stances did help him. He gave them someone to blame for their factories being shutdown and their jobs shipped to Mexico. Republicans have been complaining about media bias for a long time. He turned it up a notch and gave them something to root for. He was a comedian roaster on the stage with a bunch of stiffs like Cruz and Bush. They tried the "reasonable" conservative with Romney. He got his butt handed to him in 2012.
I'm a big-government liberal who was overjoyed to cast a vote for Obama in 2008, but I withheld my vote for his re-election in 2012 because of the secret drone program and prosecution of whistleblowers. Now, the fact that my vote would have been in a blue state that would have made little difference contributed to that decision, but still, I have higher principles informing my vote than simple partisanship. If you are a conservative voter and you know that Trump is an idiot and a charlatan and a cruel narcissistic troll, but tax cuts and gun rights and other issues are too important to you to hand the executive over to Hillary, okay- I understand somewhat. Now, if I were to imagine a reverse scenario: democrat voters nominate a candidate for president who is obviously stupid, completely inexperienced, incompetent, malignantly narcissistic, brazenly corrupt, shockingly dishonest, endlessly trolling %50-60 of the nation, clearly in it only to inflate his already gigantic ego, but he pushes some important policies I support and I don't want to have the conservative candidate control the executive branch, and the election could be close... okay, maybe I'll hold my nose and vote for him. BUT I would tell every single person who would listen- left, right and center: of course I know he's an idiot. Of course I know he's a liar. Of course I know he's an egomaniacal hypocrite - but I put passing legislation above honor in this case. I apologize that me and my party put this guy in charge; it's very embarrassing. I would explain this over and over because it's more important that people know that I actually have some semblance of judgment, than to say nyah nyah I won you lost and my guy makes you angry, hooray.
Also, to further the above hypothetical where I cast my vote for an incredibly flawed democratic president who furthers my choice policies: If the above hypothetical ***hole democrat president constantly denigrates republican voters and conservatives, and he is even more beloved by democrats because of this disrespect, I would go out of my way in this forum to repeatedly tell those on the other side that I find it abhorrent that the leader of the nation denigrates half of the nation, who are my fellow Americans even if we disagree. The president of the United States constantly leveraging partisan hatred is the opposite of leadership, and I would say so if the shoe were on the other foot.
Maybe Republicans will do that.... when he's not running in another election to maintain the same power.
Bush and his crew should be considered war criminals so there is that little thing to include when trying to portray Bush as a kind hearted soul. I mean personally he seems like a decent guy to have a beer with and he is way less of an ******* than Trump but he led the disaster that was the Iraq War and we know all of the lies that went along with starting that. I honestly don’t know how you can put Trump even remotely close to the recklessness of Bush’s team. It kind of amazes and disgusts me how W gets this whitewash treatment.
Again you’re only looking at things through your perspective and talking at people and not having a conversation. There are too many things that you listed that I can see the other side on but it is pointless to try discussing those things with you because you have adopted them as points that are not up for discussion. That’s fine but you need to accept that you are dug into a stance and you aren’t willing to change your mind. That is why I asked who your target audience was because it clearly wasn’t framed as an open discussion for people on the other side of you politically.
The July 13 2018 indictment describes the IRA efforts that swayed votes to Trump, away from Cruz and Jeb, to Bernie and away from Hillary, and particularly in the swing states you reference, votes to Trump and away from Hillary. These efforts, as the indictment states, represent campaign contribution from a foreign source in violation of US law.
Republican presidents are only Hitler while they're either in or running for office, after they've been in office, well then they weren't so bad, and are definitely better than the current guy, who is Hitler (ps we're not sure if Hitler was too socialist to have been Hitler).
Perhaps you want to give it a try and see how it goes. You may change your mind about FB not willing to change is mind. Just maybe. What things that FB listed that you can see the other side on?
